


After the Long Day

by Heylir



Category: Widdershins (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-12-06 23:32:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18226892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heylir/pseuds/Heylir
Summary: The long day passed, the malform busters end up on the farm of Barbers. They have something to talk about.Spoilers forCurtain Call.





	After the Long Day

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Scars We Give Each Other](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17084339) by [M3zzaTh3M3z](https://archiveofourown.org/users/M3zzaTh3M3z/pseuds/M3zzaTh3M3z). 
  * A translation of [После трудного дня](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18418700) by [Heylir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heylir/pseuds/Heylir). 



> This translation was made by the author. I'd be grateful to be informed about typos and mistakes found, in order to fix them.

    “So it isn’t just scary stories stuff, is it?” the bearded man with a large “colour thing” asked, amazed.  
    “Really scary it had to be!” the (obviously) red-haired sister of the Captain gasped.  
    Ben’s cousin snorted, tearing off a duck leg.  
    “But how much exciting!” Harry’s wizard exclaimed, with his mouth full. Many colours still flashed and changed around him, as before, but there was a blue border now. O’Malley knew where it had come from. “To think that, before us four, nobody in the world has experienced such a thing!”  
    Ben nodded but chewed and swallowed his mouthful before talking:  
    “And as a result of that, we — or _parts_ of us — were able to go beyond the Door. And to kick that b... east there! It was worth it. Now it must be found out, by any means, why wizards can’t enter the Space-Between.”  
    “I think that one probable explanation is...”  
    O’Malley didn’t want to listen to his babble and looked at silent Wolfe. He smiled at Mal and moved a plate of sliced ham to him:  
    “Take a taste! It is very good.”  
    “The violinist” didn’t play his violin, looked worried and had a blue streak, too.

    Ben spread out a mattress on the floor and eagerly explained the daily routine on the farm:  
    “We don’t need an alarm clock there as roosters crow at dawn. Breakfast is in an hour after morning milking...”  
    “Maybe you had better sleep with us in the double bed,” Wolfe said, paying no attention to the grimace Mal pulled. “There is enough room for all of us.”  
    “No, thanks,” Ben deftly unfolded a sheet. “I prefer the floor. I slept as the third one in the bed once, and I didn't like that.”  
    “Let me take a mattress, then.”  
    Ben put a pillow on a sheet:  
    “An uneconomical decision, wasting such a big part of the bed. Don’t worry, I can sleep even on bare stones now,” he yawned. “But I have to go say Vee good night. Go to bed without me.”

    Mal looked above Ben's head as he left the room.  
    “What’s got into ‘im? Like ‘e didn’t drink at th’ table.”  
    Wolfe smiled, “The joy of victory is stronger than wine, yes? Let us hope he will not have a hangover tomorrow.”  
    “From recallin’ of th’ burned ‘ouse?”  
    “I do not think he has forgotten that. Just we all had more serious troubles.”  
    “Y’ looked out fer ‘im, didja?” Mal asked suddenly.  
    The question didn’t surprise Wolfe:  
    “I tried. Sometimes I failed. And... sometimes I worried too much about you for that.”  
    Mal shrugged, “I’m alright, ‘e’s alright. We’re all ‘right, ‘cept ‘Arry.”  
    “It was her choice,” said Wolfe softly. “And each of us would take the same one. I, you, Ben, any of the Barbers. That is why nobody blames you for her, do you know?”  
    “’Ey, ‘s beside th’ point. Mebbe, I jus’ want ‘er bein’ ‘ere. Mebbe, I miss ‘er like I’d miss ye... or ‘im.” He jerked his head at the door and didn’t see either quick flash over Wolfe’s head or his expression changed for a moment.  
    “She will come back,” he said firmly. “Sooner or later. We just have to wait.”  
    “Wait, uh-huh. She went away thru’ a witch door, th’ hell knows where, an’ I gotta sit an’ wait. Some witch I’m.”  
    “You are the witch we all are blessed with. Who saved us all.” Wolfe smiled. “How do you feel about being the one, my friend?”  
    “Dunno. Not used t’ it yet. Too much o’ stuff. Strange, weird, good, bad.”  
    “Bad?”  
    Mal frowned, “Children tales ‘bout witches th’t ain’t tales at all.”  
    Wolfe said gently:  
    “Witches can steal souls, but you did not. You freed our souls and returned them home.”  
    “Lust couldn’t steal yer souls ‘less wi’ my powers. So s’ my faul’. All th’t nightmare, ne’er min’ what Ben’s sayin’. ‘f I were better ‘n that, smarter, ‘f I guessed... I know y’ don’t blame me, only s’ all th’ same.”  
    “I do not blame you, you are right,” a blue wave went around Wolfe. “I blame myself.”  
    “Why? Fer gettin’ me into Widdershins?”  
    “No,” Wolfe shook his head. “Someday you still would go there. I am glad that you have found yourself and your home. And it is good that you were not alone when you had to defend it.”  
    “So what’s that ‘bout?”  
    “It is about... why Lust took us hostage.”  
    “‘Cause it knew it wouldn’t work th’ other way. It knew I ain’t... its kinda guy.”  
    Wolfe nodded, “But how could it get to know that? Even before it met you?”  
    “I dunno...” Mal was a bit confused. “I’d never told nobody ‘bout that, ‘cept... you?”  
    A deep colour of embarrassment swept over Wolfe.  
    “It...” Mal felt a fierce hatred to the devious bastard again. “It fooled ye? Tricked ye?”  
    “Not exactly. It... or rather, _she_ made me fall under her influence and answer her questions about you. Then she made me forget it. And later, in the Anchor... it reminded me, and I realised what happened. If I had not given in, had not fallen into the trap, if I had been stronger or a man of a different kind — Lust could have not used me, and then — there would have been no harm to us four and, more importantly, no harm to you.”  
    “T’ me?”  
    “Of course. What we got through was very unpleasant, but it ended and ended well. And you are still living in the moment when you saw our souls captured, and it does not end. There is nothing good in that. What do you think I feel, knowing it is all my fault?”  
    Mal jerked his head.  
    “But s’not so! Y’ can’t be blamed fer what th’ scum forced ye t’ do! Fer who ye are, fer ye couldn’t beat a Deadly... one can’t blame anyone fer that!” He saw a merry ripple flowed through Wolfe’s colours and stopped. “It’s weird,” he muttered.  
    “No, it is human.” Wolfe smiled. “To blame yourself and not to blame your friend, for the same thing. We can go on blaming ourselves, watch the other suffering and suffer over that. Or we can just...”  
    “What?”  
    “Just say that all bad things happened with us are the Deadlies’ fault, nobody’s else. We all together fought against them, made mistakes, tried and failed, sometimes, — but always we wanted only to do the right thing. We have done what we wanted, and all the bad things went away as Deadlies did.”  
    Mal asked doubtfully, “D’ ye think it’s gonna work?”  
    “Let us try.”  
    Wolfe took Mal’s hands, pressed them a little, and said, looking into his eyes:  
    “It is Lust’s doing and it is not your fault, Mal.”  
    Mal looked not into Wolfe’s eyes, but at clear and bright serenity above his head — and it spoke volumes. He repeated, a bit hoarsely:  
    “It’s Lust’s doin’ an’ it in’t yer fault, Wolfe.”  
    “Well?” Wolfe smiled.  
    Mal didn’t know what to say and mumbled:  
    “But what ‘bout Ben?”  
    “I am sure...” Before Wolfe could tell what he was sure of, Benjamin himself entered the room, with two glasses of white and gold liquid in his hands.  
    “Ben has something to be blamed for, too,” he said, looking at Wolfe. “You can be a witness.”  
    “Jus’ don’t tell me, please!” Mal snorted. “T’ creepy stuff fer th’ night.”  
    Wolfe shook his head at Ben:  
    “We all have something to remember — or forget, about all of us. No one can be good at all things, neither you nor I. It is not your fault that you were not always strong enough, Ben.”  
    “It’s not your fault that you weren’t always strong enough, Wolfe,” echoed Ben.  
    Wolfe looked at Mal. He began, quite casually:  
    “It in’t yer fault, Ben...” he stopped at the last consonant but finished: “In anythin’. ‘Cept we’ve won th’ day, mebbe.”  
    “There’s no fault of yours, O’Malley, besides our victory,” Ben said seriously. And added in the same tone: “I got some milk with honey, do you want it? I was told it helps to fall asleep and makes your dreams good.”  
    “Don’t ye start too!” Mal pleaded. “Drink yer milk fer th’ night y’self, _Benji_.”  
    “Okay, _Jackie_ ,” Ben retorted serenely. His colours changed more quickly and flashed more brightly than it used to be, something that Mal had noticed in the Anchor already.  
    “May I have a glass?” Wolfe asked.  
    Ben gave one to him and drank off another one. Then he undressed and started to put on pyjamas that he borrowed from their hosts.  
    “And do you know whose are these pyjamas? Henry Barber’s, they keep a stock of things for frequent visitors here. All others are the wrong size.”  
    Mal rolled his eyes and climbed into bed.  
    “Good night... t’ ye both.”  
    “Good night”, Ben and Wolfe replied.

    Mal rarely had dreams in colour, to say nothing of good ones. But that night his dream was full of the azure and the violin music as he wandered around some strange world made of shapes and colours, and the road itself found him, and buggerups jumped happily beside him, and that, pink one, ran ahead and showed the way. In the end he entered the clearing where a long table was set under trees, and the entire family of Barbers sat around it, and smoke curls of Harry’s pipe floated in the air and twined together, and two old women without “colour things” held some parcels in their hands, and of course, there were Ben and Wolfe, too, and, next to Wolfe, Enid was sitting, the same as he remembered her as a child, and then he...  
    Wolfe would never tell anybody what he dreamed of.  
    And Ben slept like a log till the very dawn, without any dreams.

**Author's Note:**

>  _It is not your fault that you were not always strong enough, Ben._ — I thought hard if it means that _After the Long Day_ and _The Victors_ belong to different timelines... and I don't know, honestly. :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Long, Long Thoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18480487) by [EnchantressEmily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnchantressEmily/pseuds/EnchantressEmily)




End file.
